Here comes the likes of the Communist Party USA promoting conspiracy theories on who was behind the recent bombings in Mexico quite recently, this time blaming it on a “vast right-wing conspiracy”: Submitted by MH

Oaxaca Bombings: Terrorist Threat or Phantom Menace?

In the wake of a string of bomb and armed attacks, the Calderon government in Mexico may be facing its newest threat”or a phantom.

According to communiques provided to the left-leaning Mexico City daily La Jornada, the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR), a long-dormant left-wing guerrilla organization based in the states of Oaxaca and Guerrero, has announced its return with a bombing campaign. It is threatening further attacks if security forces do not free two of its captured members. But some observers doubt that the EPR actually carried out the attacks.

The EPR claimed credit for two Aug. 1 bombs in the commercial district of Oaxaca City, one at the entrance of a Sears store, another at a branch bank of Banamex. On July 28, EPR guerillas fired on a prison under construction in Chiapas. The campaign opened by blowing up two gas pipelines belonging to state oil company Petroleos Mexicanos (PEMEX) on July 5 and July 10 in Guanajuato and Queretaro, leading to the temporary closure of 90 factories.

The EPR charges that security forces arrested members Emundo Reyes Amaya and Gabriel Alberto Cruz Sanchez on May 25 in Oaxaca. The group claims that neither were engaged in any armed actions at the time of their arrest, yet are currently being tortured. It communiques demand that the government release Amaya and Sanchez and warn that more attacks will be brought against economic targets if its demands are not met. The Calderon government and the Oaxacan Ministry of Justice deny that they have detained the two EPR figures. In the meantime the Calderon government has deployed troops to guard the country’s energy infrastructure and government buildings, and security forces are increasing efforts to locate EPR units.

Felipe Ruiz, a former member of the now defunct Oaxaca-based guerilla organization, the Revolutionary Workers Party, said that, judging by the magnitude of the bomb attacks against the PEMEX pipelines, the two imprisoned EPR members are probably commanders of the organization. He said the government’s arrest of Amaya and Sanchez “was a blunder” because it will force the EPR to target more “strategic installations” in its campaign to free the two. Also, 12 other guerilla organizations might undertake joint military operations with the EPR, Ruiz speculated.

Others, such as North-Carolina-based author Dick J. Reavis, question whether the EPR actually carried out the bomb attacks. Reavis, who has followed and written about Mexico’s guerillas groups since the 1970s, said that he thinks “the EPR is either very small and secretive, or dead.” Reavis, who visited guerilla controlled zones in Oaxaca and Veracruz in the late 1970s, knew several of the EPR’s original members.

Reavis has examined the press releases from the supposed EPR, and he said that the language used is at variance from that of past statements. He also added that “the Pemex event [bombings] was outside of the EPR’s usual territory, apparently using explosives unknown to common guerrillas.” Reavis thinks that “a disgruntled employee or the government itself” carried out the attacks. “I will think so until l see a communique that was written by the EPR,” he added. He also pointed out that the EPR has not updated its webpage for the last two years.

Former center-left presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador called the bombings a “smoke screen” to privatize Pemex and to reinforce the criminalization of dissidents. A spokesperson for the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO) suggested that the right-wing state government of Ulises Ruiz Ortiz carried out the August 1 bombings to blame APPO and create a climate of fear to influence the outcome of the state-wide elections which just took place. The center-left coalition For the Good of All (consisting of the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD), the Workers Party and Convergencia) which placed second behind the coalition lead by the right-wing Institutional Revolutionary Party, was forecast to be the big winner. Ruiz accused the PRD, as well as APPO, of being infiltrated by the EPR.

The EPR, formed by fourteen armed groups in 1995, is dedicated to overthrowing the government and building socialism in Mexico. The group achieved notoriety in the summer of 1996 when it attacked military bases and police stations across Guerrero and Oaxaca, killing and wounding dozens of soldiers and police officers. The EPR is one of some 30 armed guerilla groups believed to be operating in Mexico.

Source: http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/artic…/p>